


your hands are anchors in the ocean of my heart

by cosipotente



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Kissing, M/M, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosipotente/pseuds/cosipotente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve comes apart between kisses, between the teeth and lips that pull and press at him. He comes together between flesh and metal hands, between English and Russian whispers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your hands are anchors in the ocean of my heart

It's the creak of the door that wakes Steve. The small sound is a warning. It's also a question. Steve, comfortable under his blankets and the sunlight streaming warm through windows, answers with a twitch of his foot. 

He doesn't need to open his eyes to track where Bucky goes. The foot of the bed dips with his solid weight and whatever intangible things are weighing on him this morning.

After a minute, Steve peeks through his eyelashes. Bucky's sits with one leg drawn up, chin on his knee, and his metal arm loosely wrapped around his leg. There's no heartbreaking panic in this posture, nothing to make him beg and plead in Russian. The cold fury that clung to Bucky for months, curled his fists and deadened his eyes, is somewhere else for now. 

There's clarity and recognition in Bucky's face when he turns to look at Steve. 

It's taken three long years, a few broken bones, and on-going therapy, but piece by fractured piece Bucky has put himself together. As together as he can make himself.

Bucky said once, after a particularly grueling session with his psychiatrist, he'd never be the James Barnes Steve wanted. Steve had simply replied that he didn't have to be. (What Steve didn't say, despite the way the words pressed against the back of his teeth, was that he would take any James Barnes over a world where he wasn't living and breathing beside Steve.)

The words stir in his mouth. Steve closes eyes and prays this is one of those days where Bucky talks for long stretches of time. They've done, and still do, a lot of talking since Bucky moved in earlier in the year. They talk about memories, about schoolyard scraps and the trouble they'd get into. They talk about the war. Sometimes, they talk about what Bucky can remember from the Red Room and the flashes of time between his cold sleeps.

Steve doesn't talk about kisses in the dark and two bodies pressed together under a single blanket. Steve doesn't talk about how he knows the sharp bite of Bucky's teeth against his neck. He doesn't talk about loving the heavy weight of Bucky's legs wrapped around his waist.

Steve's a damn coward. He rolls over onto his stomach as far away from Bucky and his searching gaze as he can. Except, behind his eyelids, Steve is still pierced by them.

A heavy hand falls around his ankle. Bucky touching him isn't new. Steve isn't even sure Bucky knows he's doing it sometimes. It happens in idle moments, a hand on his or a brief brush of fingers over various parts of Steve's body. An anchor. A reassurance.

The hand leaves, Bucky's presence following after shortly. Then he's crawling over Steve to press himself between the wall and Steve's body. Bucky smells like Steve's shampoo and laundry soap. 

This isn't new, either. Bucky's slept beside him on many occasions. Steve's lost count of how many times Bucky stretched out on his bed to talk. Or just sleep. Or to simply stare. And every time Steve's heart leaps into his throat as he thinks: _This is it. He remembers._

Steve still isn't sure what he'd do if Bucky did remember. Or whether or not it would even be something good for him to remember. 

Bucky never mentions that aspect of their friendship, and while it hurts, Steve is okay with that.

He's almost asleep again when Bucky speaks.

"Do you remember the first time we rode the Cyclone?"

How could Steve forget. He threw up all over Bucky's shoes. And much, much later in the darkness of their tiny apartment, Steve made it up to him.

"Yeah," Steve says, "why?"

Bucky doesn't answer. Steve pushes himself onto his side until they are face to face. There's barely any trace of the wild, haunted, hunted look of the Winter Soldier left on Bucky. His hair is pulled back revealing the buzzed undercut Steve's fingers have been itching to smooth over. He's clean shaven and freshly showered.

His eyes are clear and while there's a slight downward pull between his brow, his expression is otherwise open. Easy.

Steve knows Bucky still has a long road ahead of him. It took him longer than he wanted to admit that Bucky's slow returning memories did not mean he was recovered. But Steve's proud of how far Bucky's come against almost impossible odds. 

If there's one thing that hasn't changed about Bucky, it's that he still surprises Steve in some new way.

"When we first rode the cyclone and you threw up," Bucky says. His metal hand settles between them. "Was that how it felt when you fell in love with me?"

Steve's heart stutters in his chest. The unsteady beat roars in his ears. The world shrinks to just him and Bucky and it takes all the air out of the room. It's suffocating and Steve's instinct is to push as far away from Bucky as he can. He can't seem move though.

"Stevie," Bucky's voice is like breaking the surface of the ocean after diving too deep without enough oxygen. "Breathe."

The world expands leaving Steve breathless in its wake. Bucky's hands hold him like anchors.

"You remember?" Steve manages. He feels raw under Bucky's steady gaze.

Bucky nods. "I remember what it used to be like." He licks his lips as as his eyes slide to a point over Steve's shoulder. 

"Do you? Do you still feel the same?" Bucky's eyes move back to Steve's face. "I don't think I do now."

Something cracks inside of Steve, then. Like a shelf of ice falling from a mountain and shattering in the ocean. When it feels like the world is expanding again, he hopes it rips him apart. It takes him a few tries before he can speak again. 

"I remember that loving you felt like being on the Cyclone everyday. And I still feel the same." It's a terrible truth that slides out of Steve's mouth. 

"What do you feel?" It's a terrible question that Steve doesn't want answered. He doesn't want it unanswered, either.

"It's like being on the Cyclone now." Bucky says. "But it's more than that too. It's like being back on that zip-line in the mountains with a speeding train under my boots." 

His eyes move from where they've captured Steve's down to his lips and back up again in a single slow sweep. Steve swallows thickly.

"It's a lot like I want you to stop staring at me like that and kiss me, Rogers."

The breath he'd been holding rushes out in a soft startled sound. Of all the things Bucky could have said, Steve never expected it to be that. He thought he'd never hear that again, the thread of need that pitched Bucky's voice lower. Honestly, in the few years since he'd come out of the ice Steve had given up thinking he deserved even that, to hear Bucky demand something as mundane as a kiss.

But here they are with the words between them and Bucky watching him hesitate.

Steve moves slowly so every movement can be watched and calculated. Bucky tracks the path of his hands as one fits along the curve of his waist and the other the curve of his jaw. He doesn’t fight Steve’s touch, he tilts into even. Steve drags the pad of his thumb along the seam of Bucky's lips; they're chapped somewhat but pliant. Waiting. Ready.

Bucky’s metal arm pulls Steve forward and his hand, heavy and cool makes Steve shiver as it fits loose around the back of his neck.

“You’re too damn slow, Rogers.” There’s a fond smile ghosting across his lips as he leans forward.

Steve meets him halfway and the pleasant sound Bucky makes washes some of the insecurities away.

The air is punched out of Steve the second Bucky’s lips sweep against his. It’s breathed back into him when Bucky sighs against his mouth. It’s a lot like kissing Bucky for the first time. Slow and easy and right. It’s also a lot like kissing him for the last time. Desperate and aching and not enough. Steve’s chest burns with a peculiar heat that spreads slow as honey through his limbs. It makes the steady push and pull of their lips that much more intoxicating.

Maybe Bucky’s feeling it too, the need and want to consume and be consumed, as one of his hands curl into Steve’s hair while the other tangles in the thin shirt he’s wearing. He changes the angle of Steve’s head with a careful tug and then presses home with his lips and the soft press of his tongue into Steve’s mouth.

There's a groan between them that Steve is embarrassed to admit was him but can do nothing about when Bucky chuckles low enough in his chest that Steve can feel the vibrations.

Steve comes apart between kisses, between the teeth and lips that pull and press at him. He comes together between flesh and metal hands, between English and Russian whispers.

And maybe Bucky does too. He falls apart in Steve’s arms, Steve puts him back together between sighs, and when they finally pull apart flushed and breathless, Steve knows the look in Bucky’s eyes. 

He’s seen it on himself in the pictures Natasha and Clint and Sam like to snap when Steve is unaware, and it's always when he's looking at Bucky.

It's the look of belonging. It's the look of home and everything right in the world.

Steve can't help it. He ducks again and kisses Bucky, except he's smiling so their teeth click together. It doesn't matter though, not now, not when they've got the time to slowly rediscover all the ways they can fit together perfectly.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this sitting on my phone since last year. After letting it sit so long, I lost the original plot idea but wanted to continue it somehow. This is it.


End file.
